研究古代疾病的科学家们发现了最早的溢出例子之一——当疾病从动物传染给人类时——它发生在一个尼安德特人身上，他可能在屠宰或烹饪生肉时生病了。
研究人员正在重新检查 1908 年在法国 La Chapelle-aux-Saints 村庄附近的一个洞穴中发现的尼安德特人的骨骼化石。众所周知，“拉夏贝尔老人”是第一个相对完整的尼安德特人骨骼出土，是最好的研究之一。
在他被发现一个多世纪后，他的骨头仍在提供关于尼安德特人生活的新信息，这些人在大约 40,000 年前消失之前生活在欧洲和亚洲部分地区的石器时代人类。
2019 年的一项研究证实，这名男子在大约 50,000 年前去世时被认为是 50 多岁或 60 多岁，他的脊柱和髋关节患有晚期骨关节炎。
然而，在重新分析过程中，内科专家、苏黎世大学进化医学研究所进化形态学和适应小组负责人 Martin Haeusler 博士意识到，并非骨骼的所有变化都可以解释为骨关节炎的磨损。
“相反，我们发现其中一些病理变化一定是由炎症过程引起的，”他说。
“在 La Chapelle-aux-Saints 骨骼中发现的病理变化的整个模式与许多不同疾病的比较使我们对布鲁氏菌病进行了诊断。”
带有这些发现的研究上个月发表在《科学报告》杂志上。
动物源性感染病
布鲁氏菌病是一种今天仍然普遍存在的疾病。据世界卫生组织称，人类通常通过直接接触受感染的动物、食用或饮用受污染的动物产品或吸入空气传播的病原体而感染该疾病。大多数病例是由感染山羊或绵羊的未经高温消毒的牛奶或奶酪引起的。
它也是最常见的人畜共患病之一——从动物传染给人类的疾病。它们包括 HIV 等病毒和导致 Covid-19 大流行的冠状病毒。
Haeusler 说，布鲁氏菌有多种症状，包括发烧、肌肉疼痛和盗汗。它可以持续几周到几个月甚至几年。这种疾病导致的长期问题是可变的，但可能包括关节炎疼痛、背痛、睾丸炎症（可导致不孕症）以及称为心内膜炎的心脏瓣膜炎症，Haeusler 说这是最常见的原因死于疾病。
该论文称，该病例是“人类进化过程中这种人畜共患疾病的最早可靠证据”。
在青铜时代的智人骨骼中也发现了这种疾病，这些骨骼可以追溯到大约 5000 年前。
饮食
今天在许多野生动物中都发现了布鲁氏菌病，Haeusler 说，尼安德特人很可能通过屠宰或烹饪被猎杀的动物而感染了这种疾病。可能的来源包括野绵羊、山羊、野牛、野牛、驯鹿、野兔和土拨鼠——所有这些都是尼安德特人饮食的组成部分。然而，该报称，尼安德特人猎杀的两种大型动物猛犸象和长毛犀牛不太可能是疾病的宿主——至少根据这些动物在世的亲属，布鲁氏菌病在很大程度上未被发现。
鉴于此人在此期间活到一定年纪，Haeusler 怀疑尼安德特人可能患有较轻的疾病。
根据史密森尼学会的说法，“教堂老人”在关于尼安德特人是原始石器时代野兽的误解中发挥了重要作用。最近的研究表明，他们和我们一样聪明。
骨骼的早期重建描绘了该男子的姿势懒散，膝盖弯曲，头部向前突出。直到后来，科学家们才意识到骨骼有一种变形的骨关节炎，可能不是典型的尼安德特人。
Haeusler 说，他在 2019 年发表的研究表明，即使有退行性骨关节炎的磨损，“教堂老人”也会直立行走。这名男子的大部分牙齿也掉光了，可能不得不由他的小组其他成员喂食。
Ancient case of disease spillover discovered in Neanderthal man who got sick butchering raw meat
(CNN)Scientists studying ancient disease have uncovered one of the earliest examples of spillover -- when a disease jumps from an animal to a human -- and it happened to a Neanderthal man who likely got sick butchering or cooking raw meat.
Researchers were reexamining the fossilized bones of a Neanderthal who was found in a cave near the French village of La Chapelle-aux-Saints in 1908. The "Old Man of La Chapelle," as he became known, was the first relatively complete Neanderthal skeleton to be unearthed and is one of the best studied.
More than a century after his discovery, his bones are still yielding new information about the lives of Neanderthals, the heavily built Stone Age hominins that lived in Europe and parts of Asia before disappearing about 40,000 years ago.
The man, thought to be in his late 50s or 60s when he died about 50,000 years ago, had advanced osteoarthritis in his spinal column and hip joint, a study from 2019 had confirmed.
However, during that reanalysis, Dr. Martin Haeusler -- a specialist in internal medicine and head of the University of Zurich's Evolutionary Morphology and Adaptation Group at the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine -- realized that not all the changes in the bones could be explained by the wear and tear of osteoarthritis.
"Rather, we found that some of these pathological changes must be due to inflammatory processes," he said.
"A comparison of the entire pattern of the pathological changes found in the La Chapelle-aux-Saints skeleton with many different diseases led us then to the diagnosis of brucellosis."
The study with those findings was published in the journal Scientific Reports last month.
Zoonotic disease
Brucellosis is a disease that's still widespread today. Humans generally acquire the disease through direct contact with infected animals, by eating or drinking contaminated animal products, or by inhaling airborne agents, according to the World Health Organization. Most cases are caused by unpasteurized milk or cheese from infected goats or sheep.
It's also one of the most common zoonotic diseases -- illnesses that are transmitted from animals to humans. They include viruses like HIV and the coronavirus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
Brucella has a wide range of symptoms, including fever, muscular pain and night sweats, Haeusler said. It can last from a few weeks to many months or even years. Long-term problems resulting from the disease are variable but can include arthritis pain, back pain, inflammation of the testes -- which can lead to infertility -- and inflammation of the heart valves known as endocarditis, which Haeusler said was the most common cause of death from the disease.
The paper said the case was "the earliest secure evidence of this zoonotic disease in hominin evolution."
The disease has also been found in Bronze Age Homo sapiens skeletons, which date back to around 5,000 years ago.
Diet
Brucellosis is found in many wild animals today, and Haeusler said that the Neanderthal man likely caught the disease from butchering or cooking an animal that had been hunted as prey. Possible sources include wild sheep, goats, wild cattle, bison, reindeer, hares and marmots -- all of which were components of the Neanderthal diet. However, the paper said that the two large animals Neanderthals hunted, mammoths and woolly rhinoceros, were unlikely to be the disease reservoir -- at least based on the animals' living relatives, in which brucellosis has been largely undetected.
Given the man lived to what must have been a very old age for the period, Haeusler suspected that the Neanderthal may have had a milder version of the disease.
The "Old Man of Chapelle" played a significant role in misconceptions about Neanderthals being primitive Stone Age brutes, according to the Smithsonian. More recent research suggests that they were just as smart as we are.
An early reconstruction of the skeleton depicted the man with a slouching posture, bent knees and the head jutted forward. It was only later that scientists realized the skeleton had a deforming kind of osteoarthritis and perhaps was not a typical Neanderthal.
Haeusler said the study he published in 2019 showed that, even with the wear and tear from degenerative osteoarthritis, the "Old Man of Chapelle" would have walked upright. The man also had lost most of his teeth and may have had to have been fed by other members of his group.
